Surely, in a community such as this, we don't think that thought is a mere product of physical interaction, do we?I am firmly in the camp wherein I consider mind/body dualism to be the order of the universe, with a possibility that there is a mind/body/spirit trialism ...threealism... trinitism ...multiplicity. So, Mike, how do you explain how someone's personality can undergo a radical shift with brain damage?I'm glad you asked, Mike. Think of it (or align your neurons in a particular manner) as an artist with an instrument. If I took my daughter's French horn and poked holes in it, bent the bell all out of shape, or replaced the mouthpiece with a reed, it would not sound like the same. Maybe I should have gone with a telescope... Okay, new analogy: think of our brain like the lens of a telescope... a refracting telescope, not a radio telescope, that wouldn't work... but an optical telescope where one lens gets a blemish... a crack, a bubble, a smudge, and that distorts any image that comes through it. And that distortion goes both ways: the person looking at something far away sees a distorted image, but light also goes back through the telescope, and the image of the person using the telescope (or maybe just his or her eye) is also distorted to the world-at-large.

I don't think you're alone in that. In recent years I've begun to suspect that the brain acts as an interface to the Mind, which is non-physical in nature. The idea being that our thoughts, memories, etc. all exist in our mind, and our Brain serves as a powerful index and search tool, accessing our mind when called upon.

In case it motivated your thought, I'll say that the forum title "What's On Your BRAIN" is just a fun variation on the expected phrase "What's On Your MIND". There's no philosophy of naturalism being expressed there.

BTW, I moved this here because I think it fits really well in this forum and you might get more responses to it here than in "What's On Your Brain".

Despite the otherwise fruity nature of his many claims this is an idea that is gaining a lot of ground thanks to the whole NDE movement of late and "Heaven is for real" book.

I'm not comparing your thoughts to his NDE experience or his credentials in neuroscience that make me kind of skeptical, but one of his ideas is that our neurological system acts as both a kind of interface AND a limiter, as if the mind were a source of electrical power that needed an electric current limiter/converter to pour into real life. In other words, the world as we see it is much more dumbed down, foggy, confusing and unreal compared to how our whole mind would truly percieve the world, which he claims is available in the afterlife.

An intelligence squared debate is also available on the subject at: http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-debates/item/1020-death-is-not-final

rossmcclure4 wrote:I'm not comparing your thoughts to his NDE experience or his credentials in neuroscience that make me kind of skeptical, but one of his ideas is that our neurological system acts as both a kind of interface AND a limiter, as if the mind were a source of electrical power that needed an electric current limiter/converter to pour into real life. In other words, the world as we see it is much more dumbed down, foggy, confusing and unreal compared to how our whole mind would truly percieve the world, which he claims is available in the afterlife.

I don't know that perception of reality is automatically improved in the afterlife. Not sure why that would be the case. But I believe it probably will be improved in the resurrected physical bodies of believers!